NATO CONDUCTS TRAINING DRILL IN ARMENIA

PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung)
2008-09-29 17:04:01
Austria

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – Hundreds of military personnel from NATO and
ex-Soviet bloc nations are in Armenia for a NATO-organized training
exercise.

U.S. Lieutenant General John Gardner says the drill is focusing a
theoretical humanitarian crisis and is designed to help NATO members
better work with non-alliance countries.

The three-week drill involving 17 countries comes weeks after
neighboring Georgia fought a brief war with Russia over the status
of two Georgian breakaway regions.

The war rattled the entire South Caucasus region, which straddles
East-West trading corridors.

Neither Russia nor Georgia sent representatives to the drill, which
began Monday.

Nor did Turkey or Azerbaijan, against whom Armenia fought a war in
the 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh.